


The Replacement

by Rival_Distiller



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: F/F, I Know They're the Same Character in Canon, Mostly Fluff, They've Got Like a Withered/Toy Dynamic, don't come at me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:08:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26961142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rival_Distiller/pseuds/Rival_Distiller
Summary: Fifteen years. That was how long I had remained undisturbed in the spare storage room, located at the very back of the basement hallway.I had begun to think that nothing would ever come and rupture through the blanket of bleak nothingness that had long ago taken over my existence.But I was wrong.
Relationships: Scrap Baby/Circus Baby
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	The Replacement

Fifteen years. That was how long I had remained undisturbed in the spare storage room, located at the very back of the basement hallway.

I had begun to think that nothing would ever come and rupture through the blanket of bleak nothingness that had long ago taken over my existence.

But I was wrong.

I was sitting in the darkest corner of the room, blankly staring at the vague outlines of boxes that surrounded me. Meaningless thoughts were beginning to drift in and out of my head when suddenly, I heard something.

The squeaks and clicks of mechanical joints had become audible. Squeaks, clicks, and clunky footsteps.

At first, I was sure that I was imagining it.

The only sounds I ever heard were the whines and groans of my barely functioning parts, and an extremely muffled version of whatever was currently happening on the floor above me.

Nobody had gone down the stairs in years, why would now be any different?

The locks on the door clacked as they were undone.

Slowly, the door creaked open. A small strip of light cut through the darkness, illuminating a portion of the dusty tile flooring.

I definitely wasn't imagining things.

After a few more seconds, the door swung open all the way, hitting the wall with a dull thud.

Somebody was standing in the doorway, backlit by the fluorescent lighting that was now completely spilling in from the hallway.

They reached for the light switch on the wall, which didn't turn on.

If all of the mechanical sounds didn't already confirm that they were an animatronic, then their stiff, jerky movements certainly did, alongside the soft glow of their irises.

After letting out a small sigh, they stepped further into the room, the door behind them closing a little under halfway.

They began looking around for something.

I watched in silence. I wasn't sure if it was because I was still in shock, or because I just wasn't yet sure what to say.

Though their features were slightly fuzzy because of the darkness, it was still clear who I was looking at.

A stark white face, red-painted nose, lips, and cheeks; doe eyes, pigtails...

It was my replacement.

I had never actually seen her before. The workers had carted me off and dumped me into the spare storage room well over a week before she arrived. But there was no denying it, the new Circus Baby was standing before me and didn't even know it.

As much as I disliked the fact that I had been replaced, I couldn't deny that she was definitely an improvement on my clunky old self. She had a much wider range of motion, she was sleeker, and far cuter than I ever was...

Was it strange to think that?

I almost didn't care if it was.

She was still looking around, obviously unsure of where exactly whatever she was looking for was.

I finally decided to say something.

Because I had gone so long without using it, my voice box crackled rather loudly when I attempted to speak.

She jolted.

"Oh Scott—!"

**"Looking for something?"**

She spun around, taking a moment to find me.

I could see her bright blue eyes scan over me, but I doubted that they could make out very much in the darkness.

She ignored my question.

"...who's there?"

**"Nobody all that special... Just an old animatronic."**

She took a step back.

I couldn't really blame her for being wary.

"That's... kinda vague... Could I maybe have a bit more information?"

**"Like?"**

"Uh... like... are you nice, or are you gonna... y'know, hurt me?"

**"I'm not going to hurt you. I'm in no state to hurt anybody, even if I wanted to. Especially not another animatronic."**

"Oh... okay."

She relaxed slightly. But only slightly. She still wasn't sure if she could trust me or not.

Why would she be? To her, I was just a voice in the corner of the room.

"...what's your name?"

**"That depends. What do you call yourself?"**

"Um... Circus Baby. Or just Baby. Or just Circus. It doesn't matter."

**"Then you can call me Scraps."**

"Scraps," Baby repeated, playing with her hands. "Why are you in here all by yourself?"

"I wasn't needed anymore."

"Why not?"

**"I'm obsolete, and... defective."** Defective was certainly one way of putting it. **"They brought in a replacement."**

The look on Baby's face made it very clear that she expected me to continue, to tell her who it was.

**"They brought in you."**

"Me?" Her faceplates shifted a bit. "Jeez, then you must've have been all alone in here for a really long time... I'm sorry, Scraps."

**"Why? You had no say in whether or not I was put down here. Hell, you obviously didn't even know that I _existed_ until a few minutes ago."**

"Well, yeah, but still..."

**"Don't worry about it. I'm sure that they would've scrapped me regardless of whether or not you were ever built. There's no fixing what's wrong with me, and they finally realized that."**

Baby looked as if she wanted to ask me something else, but ended up deciding against it.

"What was it like here? Back when you performed, I mean. Did you ever even perform at all? Were there any animatronics that worked alongside you?"

**"No... it was just me. It was always just me."**

"Just you, huh?" After a moment of hesitation, she sat down on a crate. "That sounds kinda boring. There's ten other animatronics up above us right now. I can't imagine not having any of them around."

**"I figured that there was more than just you. I always hear voices after hours."**

Her eyes flicked up towards the ceiling for a moment. "...I think the Funtime Auditorium is above us? You're probably hearing Freddy and Foxy. The two of them are really loud."

**"Yeah, I've gathered that through their raucous screaming. I sometimes wonder if something terrible is happening because it often sounds like there is."**

"Raucous screaming? I believe you meant 'dulcet tones'," she said, a slight smile beginning to tug at the corners of her mouth. "I'm just kidding. Ballora says that too, actually. She says that it always sounds like the Auditorium just caught on fire or something."

And with those words uttered, she started to tell me about the rest of her friends, and more about herself when I asked.

She tried to get me to talk about myself too, but I didn't offer as much as I should have.

Despite that, despite the repeated gaps in the conversation that occurred when I wouldn't answer certain things, words still flowed fairly easily between this.

Baby would tell a ridiculous story with over-animated hand gestures, a big smile on her face, and a laugh edging her soft voice. Every single time, it seemed that if she didn't get to the funny part fast enough, she was going to literally explode.

I would make some sort of dry or sarcastic joke every now and again. More laughter would escape her, and she'd build off of whatever I said before continuing.

A compliment would slip out sometimes too, usually before I could stop myself. Her overly symmetrical smile would get a bit bigger before she muttered a thanks of some kind.

Whenever she managed to get me to talk about something, she listened really intently, as if it was the most interesting thing that she had ever heard.

I have absolutely no idea how long we sat there and talked to each other but I do know that I was suddenly feeling happier than I had a long time.

"Do you think that you'll let me actually see you at any time during this exchange?"

I cocked my head to the side. **"What do you mean? Can't you see enough of me already?"**

I knew that she couldn't.

"No, I can see your outline and very dull green lights that I'm assuming are your eyes," she said. "That's it, though. I wanna see your actual face."

**"I really don't think that you do. I'm a bit... damaged if you haven't already gathered."**

"I'm sure you don't look that bad. C'mon!"

I didn't move.

"You're gonna have to show yourself when you leave the room anyways." Suddenly, her eyes widened, making them somehow appear even more cartoonishly round then they already were. "You are gonna leave the storage room, right? You don't want to stay here, do you?"

**"Of cou—"**

"You can't stay in here!" she cut me off. I noticed that as soon as she started getting comfortable she became very rambly. "It's sad, and dark, and dusty, and lonely in here. I can't allow someone that I like to stay in a place that's sad, and dark, and dusty, and lonely!

"It's marginally nicer upstairs! Well, you probably know that already... you've seen it before. But if you needed to be reminded, there you go! And, and, uh, you can meet all of the others. I can't bring them down here because... they... wouldn't all fit in the room at once!

"Ooh, and you can stay in your old Gallery, which is currently also my Gallery. There's plenty of room!"

I chuckled. **"If you had let me finish, you'd know that no, I don't really want to stay here. At all. "**

"Oh... haha." I'm sure that if animatronics were capable of blushing, she would've been. "Well, if that's the case, then what's the problem?"

I wasn't really sure. I supposed that I just didn't want Baby to see me while I was in such a state of disrepair, nothing more than a talking pile of scrap metal. But she was right. If I wanted to leave the room, then there was no way that she wasn't going to see me. It was inevitable.

Plus, she told me that one of her friends was also in a state of disrepair. It was the other clown, Ennard. And she didn't talk about him like she was scared of him.

But maybe I was in worse condition than he was.

I was afraid of her being afraid of me.

**"...I don't know."**

Baby stood back up, repeating, "C'mon."

She held her right hand out towards me.

Sleek, white, polished metal. Fingertips squared off. They kept the balloon inflating ability, it seemed.

**"I, uh... I can't—"**

She looked down at her palm. "Oh, do you not have a right hand or something? Sorry, I didn't realize." She retracted her hand, offering her other one instead.

Slowly, and hesitantly, I reached out and took it.

Some sort of button was pushed, making a short recording play.

_"Circus Baby loves you!"_

It didn't sound exactly like Baby, the voice was far more high pitched and less tinny, but it clearly came from her.

"Um... ignore that."

**"Cute. Is that why you tried to offer me your other hand?"**

"Yeah..." She laughed slightly and looked away before pulling me up.

To my surprise, my knees did not buckle beneath me.

My joints felt a bit weak, but they could still support me.

"You ready?" she asked.

**"I... think so."**

She tightened her grip on my hand and kept her eyes trained on my shadowed form as she guided me over to the door, opening it back up all the way.

For the first time in a long time, I was fully exposed to light.

It was harsh and almost painful. I simply wasn't used to it anymore.

We both stopped in the hallway. I blinked a couple of times, still attempting to adjust.

"Yeah, see? I was right."

I looked down at Baby, who was still looking up at me, but with one of her adorable smiles now present on her face.

**"About what?"**

"You said that I wouldn't want to see you because you're 'busted', and I said that you probably didn't look that bad. I was right." She fixed one of my faceplates, which had become misaligned at some point. "You don't look bad at all."

As if snapping out of some sort of trance, she stepped back a bit and started to drag me down the hallway and over to the staircase before I could say anything in response.

**"Wait... didn't you come down here to get something?"**

Baby stopped in her tracks.

"Ohh, that's right! I was supposed to see if there were any lightbulbs."

She finally released my hand and ran back into the storage room.

"I'll be back in a second!"

I started to drift back into my thoughts.

I was finally going to leave the basement.

And I was going to be spending a lot more time with Baby, wasn't I?

A stupid grin worked its way onto my face.

Something in the storage room broke.

**"You need some help?"**

"Uh... yes, please? I can't tell what I'm doing and I have no idea where to look."

**"Okay, I'm coming."**

...I was going to finally leave the basement after I found some lightbulbs.


End file.
